One of my mates from my sons school asked me how I was going...work wise.
Christmas is buuuusy for Pastors, but this year is a lot less stressful for us, for a couple of reasons.

We dropped our Carols by Candlelight. I am not saying it is not effective, or worthwhile doing, and if you are doing it...great! But for us, we have done it for a number of years with some years being fantastic, others being dissapointed. You are at the mercy of the weather, other events, local residents...so many factors which can cause stress. There is also a lot of expense and trouble to pull it off.
We decided that even though our carols have been good for us as a church, we wanted a change this year.

With Christmas Day falling on a Friday we made the decision to have a Christmas Eve Childrens service, and a caroling style Christmas Day Service, and then a low key film day on the Sunday.

We are holding this in the community centre, and I reckon its going to be great. Doing something different to what we normally do means our people are refreshed at the thought, and enthusaistic.
New, change...excites. Doing the same thing again and again does not.